Gretsch

109
APRIL 2020 GUITARIST
reviewGRETSCH G6120T-BSSMK & G6120T-HR
selected Mr Jones’s instant cult-classic,
the Ray Butts Ful-Fidelity. While the
Setzer Signature pups take you back to the
Cats’ classic records, the Ful-Fidelity is
the ultimate 88mph DeLorean leap to the
1950s. Tonally, we’re not that far away from
the sound of the much-loved TV Classic.
There’s just a bit more of everything. The
top-end is bright yet well rounded. You
know that warm treble thing tone geeks
go on about? This is it. The bottom strings
ring out piano-style and the lower output of
these pickups ensures you really catch that
airy sound of a hollow laminate maple body.
That also translates to a warm clarity in the
neck position.
Rockabilly players will likely spend
most of their time in the middle position.
Like the Hot Rod, you get the right
balance of bite and warmth. Here, the
Full-Fidelity pups have less bark than the
Setzer Signatures, but we like the softer
voice for fingerpicking stuff. Retro cats
will also have their own opinion on the
’59’s preset tone switch. We prefer the
neutral middle position. The treble roll-off
setting is a distant second place for us.
Jazzers might be happiest there, but the
bass emphasising third position is about
as useful as the ‘neck’ sound on a vintage
Fender Esquire.
Unlike the Setzer pups, the Ful-Fidelity
model is not wax potted, so it’s best suited
to lower gain settings. This is the pickup for
country jazz picking, that meticulous Chet
Atkins approach that made him such an
influence on people like Brian Setzer and
Tommy Emmanuel.
Verdict
When it comes to the reality of owning a
vintage G6120, Brian Setzer knows where
the bodies are buried. He might love his
candy finishes, but the man has never
sugarcoated the sheer amount of work he
had to out into making his original ‘Stray
Cat’ G6120 stay in tune and play right.
“The big problem for me was the zero
fret,” he told us last year. “I took a hammer
and chisel and just knocked it out and then
moved the nut up to where that fret would
stand. The pickups were too far away from
the strings. I put in folded up matchbooks
and screwed the pickups back down. That
raised the pickups.”
Yep… 45 years of tweaking (and decades
of working with Gretsch to perfect his
signature models) all comes down to the
Setzer’s signature seals
the deal on the new
Gretsch models
VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra
GIT457.rev_gretsch.indd 109 20/02/2020 10:50